Communication devices may transmit and receive communication signals via a communication medium. In one example, the communication medium may be a wireless medium in which communication signals are transmitted and received according to a wireless communication protocol. Example wireless communication protocols may include IEEE 802.11 protocols and Bluetooth protocols according to the Bluetooth Special Interest Group. In another example, the communication medium may be a wired medium in which communication signals are transmitted and received according to a wire-based communication protocol. Some example wire-based protocols may include an Ethernet® protocol and/or a Powerline Communications protocol described by the HomePlug 2.0 specification. In yet another example, the communication medium may be a hybrid combination of wired and wireless communication mediums.
Analog signals within communication devices may undergo a “mixing” operation to, for example, modulate a baseband signal for transmission, and/or demodulate a received signal to recover the baseband signal. For example, a communication device may include a mixer to “mix” (e.g., multiply) a baseband signal together with a local oscillator (LO) signal to generate a radio frequency (RF) signal for amplification and transmission by the communication device.
When a communication device, such as a wireless communication device, operates in the presence of signal jammers or other interferers, the received signal may not be correctly demodulated by the mixer. For example, if the mixing operation is not relatively linear, then all or part of the signal jammer or other interferer may be included in, or otherwise affect the demodulated signal. However, a mixer with relatively high linearity may consume more power than other mixers (e.g., mixers with lower linearity), and therefore may not be desirable for use in mobile (e.g., battery powered) devices.
Thus, there is a need to control operations of communication devices to reduce power consumption and improve signal processing performance, especially in the presence of jammers or other signal interferers.